Pay Equity and Living Wage

About the Pay Equity and Living Wage Working Group

Formed in 2019, the Berkeley Center’s Pay Equity and Living Wage Working Group explores gender-based (including LGBTQI) unequal and unfair pay and its intersection with race, ethnicity, age, disability, income status, and poverty. The Working Group examines pay disparities affecting workers in both formal work relationships and informal economies. It studies the progress made and challenges faced by countries, nations, and regions around the world in addressing unequal pay. Its goal is to identify, document, and share evidence-based, proactive steps to help reduce pay inequity and achieve living wages around the world.

Pay Equity and Living Wage Working Group Projects

Current Projects 

Webinar on The EU Pay Transparency Directive – Professor Sara Benedí Lahuerta

February 29, 2024 – Click here to register

In June of 2023, the European Union adopted a groundbreaking Pay Transparency Directive, designed to help close the gender pay gap among EU workers. This webinar will provide an overview of the major goals and provisions of the Directive. Topics will include: the role of the Directive in the EU legal order; individual rights, collective duties, and enforcement procedures under the Directive; and the advantages and shortcomings of the Directive. Join us to learn about this crucial new tool and its potential impacts on gender pay equity.

Online EdX Course: Global Pay Equity – updates coming

Past Projects 

Inaugural Pay Equity and Living Wage Conference: Held in Spring 2021, this inaugural conference of the Working Group brought together scholars, lawyers, government officials, workers, activists and socially responsible business experts to identify potential, evidence-based, proactive steps to address pay inequity and achieve living wages around the world.

1st International Equal Pay Day Flash Conference: Held in Fall 2020, this flash conference explored the solutions for equal pay worldwide. Some topics discussed were: Women’s Economic Empowerment, equal pay in the United States, equal pay in Europe, and FPI Fair Pay Innovation lab.

Who We Are

Co-Directors

  • Stephanie Bornstein Headshot

    Stephanie Bornstein

    • Professor of Law & William M. Rains Fellow, Loyola Law School, Los Angeles
    • Profile

    Stephanie Bornstein is Professor of Law and William M. Rains Fellow at Loyola Law School, Los Angeles, where she teaches and writes in the areas of employment and labor law, antidiscrimination law, and procedure law. An expert on gender and racial pay gaps and equal pay law in the United States, Bornstein has published scholarship in top U.S. law reviews and in edited volumes on feminist legal theory, gender and the law, and critical civil procedure. Her scholarship has been cited in enforcement efforts by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) and the U.S. Department of Labor’s Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP). From 2019-2020, Bornstein served as the Chair of the American Association of Law Schools Section on Employment Discrimination Law, of which she remains an Executive Board member. Since 2021, Bornstein has co-authored a leading law school casebook in the field, Sullivan, Bornstein & Zimmer, Cases & Materials on Employment Discrimination (Aspen, 2021).

    Prior to joining the Loyola Law School faculty, Bornstein served as the Irving Cypen Professor of Law at the University of Florida Levin College of the Law; a Visiting Assistant Professor at U.C. Law, San Francisco (formerly U.C. Hastings College of Law); a Faculty Fellow and the Deputy Director of U.C. Law, SF’s Center for WorkLife Law; and a staff attorney at national public interest law center Equal Rights Advocates.

  • Sara Benedi Lahuerta Headshot

    Sara Benedí Lahuerta

    • Assistant Professor in Law and Academic Director of French Law/Law & Language Programmes, Sutherland School of Law, University College Dublin
    • Profile

    Dr Sara Benedi Lahuerta joined University College Dublin (UCD), Sutherland School of Law, as an Assistant Professor in December 2019. Previously, she was a Lecturer in Employment Law at the University of Southampton Law School (UK) (2014-19) and the founding Director of the Stefan Cross Research Centre for Women, Equality and Law (2018-19).

    Sara’s research focuses on discrimination and employment law (at EU and comparative levels). She is particularly interested on avenues to improve the effectiveness of equality law through a range of regulatory tools like collective enforcement, equality bodies, positive duties, ADR and collective remedies. Her current research projects concern the analysis of pay transparency regulations to address the gender pay gap and EU policies to address hate speech. Other recent projects include: ‘Rethinking EU Equality Law’ (2016-18) and ‘The impact of Brexit on EU nationals’ vulnerability: the case of Polish nationals’ (2018-19). She also participated in the project: ‘Future Directions in EU Labour Law’ (2015-16), coordinated by Prof. Prassl (University of Oxford) and funded by the British Academy.

    Her research has been funded, among others, by the ESRC (Impact Acceleration Account), the Society of Legal Scholars, and Enterprise Ireland. She has been published in leading journals, including Legal Studies, the Common Market Law Review, the European Law Journal and the European Labour Law Journal. She is the Editor-In-Chief of the Berkeley Center on Comparative Equality & Anti-Discrimination Law E-Journal.

    Sara is a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (UK) and holds a PhD from the University of Leicester (2015), an LLM in EU Law from the College of Europe (2008) and a double degree in Law and Business from the University of Zaragoza (2007). She has also acted as an expert for the European Commission’s ‘Rights, Equality and Citizenship Programme’ and Marie Curie Individual Fellowships. She has been a trainee at the European Commission and an academic assistant at the College of Europe. Sara is a qualified Spanish lawyer and previously worked as an in-house lawyer in the private sector.

  • Portrait of Patricia Shiu

    Patricia Shiu

    • Co-Director, 2019-2022; Advisor; Former Director, Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs
    • Profile

    Patricia A. Shiu was appointed Director of the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs at the United States Department of Labor and served from 2009 to 2016. She enforced Executive Order 11246, the Rehabilitation Act, and the Vietnam Era Veterans’ Readjustment Assistance Act which prohibit employment discrimination by covered federal contractors. Ms. Shiu and the DOL finalized five regulations, including OFCCP’s sex discrimination regulations, and required aspirational hiring goals for individuals with disabilities and covered veterans. Under her leadership, OFCCP issued two new regulations, Executive Order 13665, requiring pay transparency from federal contractors, and Executive Order 13672, prohibiting discrimination on the bases of sexual orientation and gender identity. Ms. Shiu established OFCCP’s Indian and Native American Employment Rights Program to promote job opportunities for Native Americans and Indians on construction projects. She worked with the EEOC on its Pay Data Collection Tool.

    Ms. Shiu served on the White House National Pay Task Force and represented the Department of Labor as a member of the White House Initiative on Asian American Pacific Islanders. Prior to joining the Department of Labor, Ms. Shiu was the Vice President for Programs at the Legal Aid Society-Employment Law Center where she worked for 26 years litigating individual and class action civil rights cases. Ms. Shiu advocated for the passage of California’s Family Rights Act, Family and Medical Leave Act, and in 2002, California’s Paid Family Leave Law. Ms. Shiu was the President of California Women Lawyers in 1987. She is the recipient of the National Employment Law Project Honor Roll Award, the Williams Institute Women in Leadership Award, the Joe Morozumi Lifetime Achievement Award, the Abby J. Leibman Pursuit of Justice Award, and the Pacific Asian-American Women Bay Area Coalition Woman Warrior Award. She is a graduate of the University of California, Berkeley and the University of San Francisco School of Law.

Student Assistants